The Unteachables Podcast

#96: 3 classroom games that are fun, easy, and can be used at a pinch to channel that end-of-year energy!!

• Claire English • Season 5 • Episode 96

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Are you feeling the strain of the end-of-year chaos in the classroom?

“My students are apathetic and completely checked out!”
“Chattiness, off-task behaviours, and disruptions are at an all-time high!”
“Some behaviour has majorly escalated!”

Sound familiar? You’re not alone.

The combination of tired students, tired teachers, heightened excitement, and a lack of routine can wreak havoc on behaviour. But with a little prep (and a few no-prep strategies), you can channel that energy effectively—and get to the end of the year... dare I say, not just surviving, but thriving!!

IN THIS EPISODE, I DISCUSS:

  • Why this time of year is so challenging: Understanding the factors behind the end-of-year chaos.
  • Three go-to games you can use in a pinch to upregulate or downregulate student energy, all while keeping the classroom fun and functional.
  • How to lean into the festive energy: Tips for embracing the chaos while controlling what you can control.


Grab the brain break bundle: 6 games (600+ questions) to use each and every day to channel energy, build rapport, boost engagement, and encourage a positive, connected, class community. 


Have a question, comment, or just want to say hello? Drop us a text!

Resources and links:

Connect with me:


Speaker 1:

Oh, hi teachers. Welcome to Unteachable's podcast. Congratulations. You have just stumbled across the best free professional development and support you could ask for. I'm Claire English, a passionate secondary teacher, author, teacher mentor and generally just a big behavior nerd, and I created the Unteachable's podcast to demystify and simplify classroom management. I want this podcast to be the tangible support, community validation, mentorship, all those pretty important things that we need as teachers to be able to walk into our classrooms feeling empowered and, dare I say it, happy and thrive, especially in the face of these really tough behaviors. So ready for some no-nonsense, judgment-free and realistic classroom management support? I've got your teacher friend. Let's do this. Hello, wonderful teachers, welcome back to the Unteachables podcast.

Speaker 1:

I'm your host, claire English, and I've been a little bit late with this episode, and it's not because I haven't wanted to jump on here. It's because I don't know if anybody's been following my story about where I am in the world, but we're living in New Zealand at the moment and I've got a bit of a unique situation where my husband is a Kiwi, so he's allowed to be here, no problem, I'm Australian. So, if anyone doesn't know, australians and Kiwis can come and go between the countries as they need to, no visa necessary. You can live as a resident, not a problem. But my daughter was born in London and she is a Brit, so her passport's British, her birth certificate's British, everything's British. So when we got to New Zealand, we were stopped at the border and they're like you need a visa for this child. I'm like what? I was really confused. I probably should have looked into it a little bit more. I just assumed that, as her parents, she'd be okay, but alas, that's not the case. Don't come to me for any immigration advice because I'm useless.

Speaker 1:

So the last 11 months, I would say, has been a nightmare. We've had to apply for visas on compassionate grounds. We've almost had to go back to the UK. It's been really challenging and finally, and we couldn't apply for a citizenship or a passport because everything that she had all her birth certificate and everything was in this shipping container that had to come from the UK here and it took like five months when we finally were able to apply for her citizenship. That took a very long time as well, but we've just gotten her citizenship certificate, everything is great, and her visa to stay in New Zealand is expiring at the end of this month, so we had to get this sorted really quickly, so we couldn't just stay here, though. We had to leave the country and then re-enter the country with her as an Australian citizen. It doesn't just tick over automatically that she's Australian.

Speaker 1:

We were on the phone to immigration multiple times times and we were told that if we left the country we could use the citizenship certificate to re-enter without a problem whatsoever, and then she would be in New Zealand as a resident, as an Australian, with no problems. So we booked this trip to Fiji because it's the closest place that we could possibly go and it was the cheapest place that we could go. So we booked a very quick trip to Fiji to exit the country and then reenter the country, and I say cheap, but it was really bloody expensive this time of year and at that short notice. So we booked this trip, we went, we had a great old time, and then we got to the airport on the way back to New Zealand and they stopped us at the border and said you need an onward ticket for your daughter. She's not allowed to come into the country. So obviously we started to freak out. I got very upset. I was saying that we got multiple pieces of advice from Immigration New Zealand that this was going to be okay. We were finally allowed on the plane and then, when we got to the other end, we had to then get stopped by Immigration and then spend another couple of hours speaking to them about it and we ended up getting her visa extended. So she's still not here as an Australian citizen, she's still here as a Brit and she's still not like a permanent resident. But yeah, she was allowed to come into the country at least, which was good. I hope anyone's fast forwarding this if you're not interested, by the way.

Speaker 1:

So the situation is that we are back. We were allowed in the country we did. I don't know if anyone's seen border security New Zealand or Australia, but at the time they were actually filming that at the arrivals kind of immigration area and the guy with the camera came up to the immigration person who had our passports and I think our case wasn't interesting enough for him to record. Thank gosh for that, but yeah, that was the situation. Anyway, all that to say that that was a bog. The podcast episode is a little bit late because we've gotten back from our very fruitless trip. Well, it wasn't, I do say that, but it was a lot of fun, but I don't know if it was worth the stress of potentially not being allowed into the country again. Anyway, we're in December.

Speaker 1:

We are on the downward slope and somebody in my community introduced herself this morning my gosh. And said that she had been teaching for five years and then she followed that up with. So my first year was in 2020, during COVID, and I was like how is it possible that we are at the end of yet another year and we're five years, like it's been five years since COVID started it. Just it blows my mind. But we are at the end of another year and at the end of the year I hear a lot of different things from teachers about how challenging this time of year is bloody challenging it is.

Speaker 1:

It's a really hard time of year for a bunch of different reasons, but I hear things like you know, my students are apathetic and completely checked out. Or you know, the chattiness is off the charts, the off-task behaviors, the disruptions, everything's at an all-time high and I hear that some behaviors have just majorly escalated. Those students who have already displayed challenging behaviors throughout the year. You might find that those students are further escalating their behaviors and they are getting even tougher to manage. So they might be running in and out of the class more. They might be more defiant, they might not be following your requests, they might be really upping those challenging behaviors, if they have already been challenging throughout the year, and this can be for a bunch of different reasons. So if we're thinking about all of those kind of chatty, off-task behaviors, the apathetic, the checked out behaviors, they're tired and we're tired and things start to slip.

Speaker 1:

If you think about the school, there are all of these different events happening. Maybe your, you know, senior students have finished for the year, the exams are over, maybe there are graduation ceremonies and you know different things that are happening that don't usually happen throughout the year. So it kind of creates this buzz in the school, this kind of uncertainty of what the day is going to bring. There might be, you know, new things that are going on. Students might be really excited about the break or they might be really anxious about the break. Some students might be in a really low arousal state, so they're exhibiting really low mental energy and alertness when they're in class. They might be checked out and tired or even a little bit, you know, withdrawn, and then there's the opposite end of that arousal scale, which is, you know, high arousal. So as the year comes to an end, there can be more chattiness and silliness and that stuff often intensifies, right.

Speaker 1:

But with a few strategies, with a few different things that we can do, we can start to channel that energy productively while still keeping our sanity towards the end of the year. And I say, and I say channeling because it's not about trying to, you know, get rid of students' excitement and it's not about trying to squash every little bit of fun, but we need to kind of meet in the middle somewhere so we can get through to the end of the year without all of that chaos that starts to really bubble over. But, understanding where these things come from, we can start to put things in place. You know, we can down-regulate through mindfulness activities. We can down-regulate through creating a calm environment, through keeping things really predictable and consistent, you know, like making sure that we have that entry routine still there and still nailed down, making sure that if we do an exit routine that it's still exactly the same, making sure that things are still scaffolded, making sure we're still doing the things we've done all year to be really predictable, really consistent, and that is always going to be. You know, reinforcing the expectations that we have and just embedding more mindfulness activities, all of those things that we can possibly do to try to kind of channel that energy in the room into something more positive and productive.

Speaker 1:

Or we can upregulate that energy with the games I'm going to be chatting about today. And actually just having these games up your sleeve for when you need to fill in those five minutes is freaking magic. Being able to, at the drop of a hat, pull something out with confidence that you don't have to prep for that. You know that you're going to get buy-in for from most students, and I say most because they're depending on your context. Like you might have a student that's like just totally off it, like I'm not going to ever say it's going to be a hundred percent effective, but I've worked with some pretty challenging classes across the world and these games generally get a hundred percent buy-in, like generally, and it's all about our energy as well, isn't it Like how we're approaching it, and Generally, and it's all about our energy as well, isn't it Like how we're approaching it? And you know how much we put into it.

Speaker 1:

But, generally speaking, these games my students love and I've got a very tough team crowd to impress, and my behavior club has been using these games throughout the last couple of weeks and been giving me some really good feedback about them as well. So these are going to get buy-in. They're either going to get the energy up or, if things are totally chaotic, you might be thinking, well, why would I chuck a game in the mix? For me, it's all about trying to channel that high energy into something that I'm controlling. It's not about controlling the behaviors, but I'm doing something in my space that I can control, that I have the autonomy over, and then I can start to and you'll hear about it in a second start to kind of move students towards being in a calmer, more productive space.

Speaker 1:

I cannot live without these games. I absolutely cannot live without these games, and these three games I'm about to give to you you can use at a pinch without any prep, but they're also a part of my games at a pinch card deck with 16 of these types of games that you can use. So if you're looking for more of them, I do have that available. If you're in the behavior club, you can go in and head in and download them Now. They're in the resource area, but if you're not, they're actually a part of my huge brain break bundle. It's a really um, what's it called A tongue? It's a really what's it called a tongue twister? A brain break bundle that comes with 10 other games, 10 other resources, and there are over like 600 different questions or games that can be used year round, with some cards, some with 250 slide PowerPoints with chat questions or riddles. It is a huge bundle. So if you are looking for something that's going to get you through to the end of the year but also be a resource in your toolbox that is just going to pay dividends day on day, year after year, it's going to be such an amazing resource for you. You can pop into the show notes if you want to grab them, but obviously, if you're in the behavior club, all that's there for you as well.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if you watch friends, but every single time I whip these games out, I say Unagi in my head, which is when Ross has that, that word for the total preparedness for what is to come, and you know if he's going to be attacked by someone. He's like Unagi he's ready for anything. And that is me, with these games and these brain breaks. So I was speaking about the, the issues with immigration, issues with immigration before, but I'm moving to Australia in a month and I'm going to be starting off casual teaching and I feel a million times better about casual teaching and, depending on where you live in the world, it could be substitute supply cash I don't know what you call it but I feel a million times better about casual teaching and being able to have a really positive experience because of activities like this to fill in time and engage students. Okay, I've been speaking for 11 minutes and 30 seconds, which is ridiculous, without actually saying what the games are, so I apologize. Hopefully it's been on your commute to work and you're having a coffee and maybe you're even stuck in traffic and I'm killing some time.

Speaker 1:

So here are three of the games that you can use at a pinch. As I said, I play this almost every day and, yes, even with the older kids, they still freaking love it. The first is rock paper scissors. They're probably thinking what the hell? Why have I waited 12 minutes to hear about this? So the first is a classic rock paper scissors battle. I'm going to assume you already know what this is. It's just students. They find a partner. So just get them all standing up, get them to find a partner, call out ready scissor, paper rock, and the winner stays standing and the loser sits in their chair, which is a really important part for me. The loser has to go back and sit in their chair. You just keep getting them to then pair up with the winners until there is an ultimate champion.

Speaker 1:

It sounds like a really simple game that everybody knows, and you know it is. But why it works so well for situations where you need to channel the energy is because one, you don't need to spend any time explaining the rules, which is perfect for when things need to be brought back in and you need to channel the energy If things are super chaotic. You cannot teach students a complicated game. All that will be is an extension of you trying to wait, and it will be so frustrating If you try to explain a game when you're just trying to give them a quick brain break and get things back on track. It's not going to work.

Speaker 1:

Number two if you're struggling with students getting out of their seats and running around a lot, you can then impose the rules of the game to then have them sitting in their seats. It kind of takes the sting away from it. So when it's about the game, it's not about you needing to impose a rule, it's not about you needing to, you know, harp on at them about sitting in their seats. It's not about oh miss, you're always trying to tell us to do X, y and Z. It takes all of that pressure off the direction, because now it's just about the game and if we want to continue the game, if we want to find out who the winner is, we need to be sitting in our chairs. So by the end of the game, the only student that should be standing is the winner. And then you can use that to flow onto another task. If you want to get that student the ultimate rock paper scissors champion to do a certain thing, or to start a conversation, or it just it depends on how you want to do it Right. I love this because it allows you to have what you can control over that space, because you can't control the behaviors, but you can control what we do and how we respond in the space.

Speaker 1:

The third thing because students are moving around. So just say, if the point of rock paper scissors battle is to upregulate because you've got a bunch of apathetic teenagers going. Oh, I'm so over this, I don't want to be here. Why am I here? Miss, this is crap. I've already done my exams. There's no point. You're getting students to move around. It's activating the brain, it's increasing the arousal and it can boost the alertness and focus. So when you are finally all sat back down, you're going to be in a much better position with those students to crack into the rest of the lesson. You'll be able to see the energy that shifted from those students.

Speaker 1:

The second game is categories. So you just give students a category or you can have students choose one so animals and foods and countries, whatever it is and students just take turns naming items from the chosen category. You can't repeat an answer. That's been said. And if a student does repeat it or it takes too long like the student takes too long to answer it they're out. And this one is great because it is a bit of fun. You can mix it up again and get students sitting back at their seats or encourage movement. If students are dysregulated, the fact that they're needing to think about the category is helping to re-engage their prefrontal cortex for learning. I love it and you can again like so, even though they're really simple games, you can do it in your own way to make sure that by the end of that game you're shifting that energy in a certain way. You can do like different things for the winner. You can embed like some of the learning terms in there. You can do like whatever. Whatever you want to do, categories is great.

Speaker 1:

And the third game is count to 20. So students take turns counting out loud, but only one person can say a number at a time. If two students say a number at the same time, everyone has to start over. There's no repeating numbers, there's no interruptions, there's no jumping ahead in the count and the game is won as a class team when you finally reach 20. So I might have to say one and then one student in the class has to say two. They're not communicating to each other. There does. One student randomly will decide it's their turn to shout out two, and if two students shout out two at the same time, we have to start over again. It's actually a really freaking hard game.

Speaker 1:

So if you've got younger students or students who are prone to, you know feeling a little bit frustrated after a while. You can do count to 10 or whatever you want to do with it. But if you're struggling with students talking over each other, shouting out, if there's like just that hubbub in the class that you can't seem to break, this game is perfect for that, because students oh well, they have to listen. Like they're having to listen to each other, they can't call out over each other and we're gamifying that. So it all of a sudden becomes like novel and fun and it's something they're doing as a team, like they're practicing their communications, because it's fantastic and it really is a bit of fun. So that is one that I also use when I feel like I need to take the reins a little bit, because things are getting a little bit chaotic, and channel that energy back in. So all of a sudden, I'm the one leading that energy.

Speaker 1:

And then, when you transition out of the game, that's where it's really important too, because, transitioning into something that is more structured, you've got a plan, you've got something there for them to crack on with immediately, so you're going into that, into that thing, in a really strategic way. So when it comes to the end of the year, my goal is always this one keep things consistent. If you've got a seating plan and entry routine, if you've got a specific exit routine, keep it. The second thing is just lean into it, and the games are such a good way to do that. You know it's December, they know it's December, they want to have a bit of fun. That is fine. It is all about leaning into things, because when we strategically lean in and have plenty and I mean plenty of things just like this up our sleeves, it makes it so much less stressful and so much less frustrating. It makes it feel much less like we're pushing things uphill to the end.

Speaker 1:

Do these games take up 10 minutes of your lesson? If you're probably thinking, well, I don't have the time to do this, I've still got to, you know. Do X, y and Z? Yes, they do take up time. They do take 10, 15 minutes, but the other 30, 40, 50 minutes are going to be meaningless if you don't have the buy-in, if you can't up-regulate the students, if you can't down-regulate the students, if you're constantly trying to push that uphill. So give these games a try, or any others you have up your sleeves, and if you want all of them there, go and download them in the club before a behavior club, or just go to the link in the show notes and download them there.

Speaker 1:

But finally, remember, if you are finding it tough, there are so many reasons for this. It's not a you thing, it's a time of you thing. And you're nearly there. We are freaking tired. Things start to slip, our energy starts to wane. Obviously, if we're the conductor of the energy in the room and our energy slips, then we're going to see the results of that in the classroom. So remember that you're nearly there and you're doing a fab job.

Speaker 1:

But just so you feel like you're not going it alone, for the next few weeks, until I wrap up the podcast for the year, I'm going to be giving you some more end of year support and strategies. So make sure you're all subscribed to that so it gets automatically downloaded. Um, yeah, I've got some really great episodes coming up that just little by little, are going to help you get to that finish line. Give you a couple of like actionable strategies. And if you're an avid listener and gotten something from the podcast today, look, I don't want to sound like I'm begging, but it would mean so much for you to head over and leave me a review. A written review is even better, but if you don't have the time just to click on that five star button, it really would mean a lot and it helps me reach more educators.

Speaker 1:

Okay, wonderful teacher, I hope that you have a wonderful week ahead. And you're nearly there. Just remember that. Have a countdown in your diary. I used to have like a little, you know, four days left, three days left, and that really helped me mentally. So whatever you need to do to get to that finish line, you do that and I'll be here along the way to hopefully give you your own little hoonagi. Okay, until next time, bye-bye.

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Claire English

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